Now about that redesign of Washington Square Park…

The photo above was taken by the New York City Parks Department and provided to the local media. It appears in this week’s Villager along with the information that the local Greenwich “Village Alliance”/8th Street BID(Business Improvement District) gave some money towards the “renovation” of Washington Square Park ($125,000 now; $125,000 later), thereby expressing its approval of the Parks Department’s controversial plan to redesign the historic Park.

Posing here with the BID members are Community Board 2 Chair Brad Hoylman, Community Board 2 Parks Committee Chair Tobi Bergman, City Council Member Alan Gerson,Speaker Quinn’s Community liaison Grey Elam, and NYC Parks Commissioner Adrian Benepe, among others.

They all look so happy, don’t they?

Given the overwhelming disapproval their constituents have expressed towards the City’s “renovation” plan and the lack of transparency and factual information the NYC Parks Department has provided about the “renovation” of this landmarked Park, I question whether any of the aforementioned people — other than Commissioner Benepe (we know where he stands) — ought to be trotting themselves out for a photo op and appear in this photo.

Yet there they are.

How does Washington Square Park stand a chance amidst Mayor Bloomberg’s agenda if these are the people designated to speak up for it? And they don’t.

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For my Activist Friends

Realize that little things lead to bigger things ... And there's a wonderful parable in the New Testament: The sower scatters seeds. Some seeds fall in the pathway and get stamped on, and they don't grow. Some fall on the rocks, and they don't grow. But some seeds fall on fallow ground, and they grow and multiply a thousandfold. Who knows where some good little thing that you've done may bring results years later that you never dreamed of.
~ Pete Seeger